Kathy Gallagher and Paul Boulanger live with their four daughters on a quiet cul-de-sac in North Andover. To a casual passer-by, their house on Turtle Lane looks like any other in town.

But take a few steps in to their backyard, and the family's not-so-average hobby becomes apparent.

Just past the swimming pool, a 440-gallon milk tank filled with clear maple sap feeds through a system of tubes and pipes in to a wooden sugar shack with steam billowing out of the top.

The family has been making maple syrup in the sugar shack under the name Turtle Lane Maple Farm in their backyard for four years, inviting the public to share their passion and come learn about the boiling process that converts sap to syrup.

"I never would have thought in a million years I would have done something that is this much work," said Gallagher with a smile. "Now, I can't imagine not doing it. People enjoy coming to watch, and we love to share it."

The family has permission from the town to collect sap from sugar maples on town property, and has 385 taps in trees all over town. Boulanger goes out every night to collect the sap their taps have drawn from trees at St. Michael Parish, the Stevens Estate, Edgewood Retirement Community and other locations.

They hope to produce 80 gallons of syrup this spring. This year, the family is boiling sap in a newly constructed sugar shack they built themselves with the help of friends and family. The structure they used in previous years was 10 feet by 12 feet; the new sugar shack is 24 by 40 feet. The professional evaporator they use boils off 43 gallons of water into steam each hour.

Gallagher and Boulanger both work full time and make syrup on nights and weekends purely as a hobby. They call themselves "backyard sugarers." During the day, Gallagher works for a software company, and Boulanger tags himself as a finance guy.

The family makes syrup as a labor of love, said Gallagher, and sells their product only to cover the costs they incur while making it. They do not charge the many school and community groups that tour.

Maple sap, which is 2 percent sugar, is converted to syrup, which is 67 percent sugar, over several hours of boiling at high temperature. Batches of maple syrup are sorted, from lightest to darkest, into three types: fancy, medium and dark.

"The longer it cooks, the darker it gets. It's like toast," said Gallagher.

North Andover 9-year-old Derek Naehle recently visited Turtle Lane Maple Farm with his mother and sister. He said it was "neat" to see the family working together to make syrup.

"It's pretty cool," said Naehle. "I learned how stressful it is (to make syrup). My favorite part was coming in the sugar shack and tasting the syrup."

North Andover second-grader Lauren D'Entremont had fun visiting Turtle Lane Maple Farm recently with her Girl Scout troop. Before her visit, she said she didn't realize that the stuff she poured on her pancakes came from trees.

The family likes to keep things local | they only distribute their bottled syrup in North Andover.

"Anybody that comes by can get a tour," Gallagher said. "But we save the syrup as a treat for North Andover."

Get more information at www.turtlelanemaplefarm.com. Gallagher said the maple sugaring season will end around March 25 or 26.



Maple Facts



It takes 43 gallons of sap make one gallon of syrup

All maple syrup, regardless of color, is 67 percent sugar

Maple sap is 2 percent sugar and is perfectly clear

Syrup is tested with a hydrometer, which checks the density of a liquid, to see if it's done

Maple season runs through the month of March, when it is cold at night and above freezing during the day

Sap is collected when the liquid runs between a tree's roots and branches each day

Once collected, maple sap has a shelf life of two or three days, and will spoil if not used

Finished syrup is heated to between 180 and 190 degrees to be bottled

A maple tree less than 12 inches in diameter should not be tapped

Sugar maples are not indigenous to New England, but red maples are. Colonists planted sugar maples, always in neat rows, to use as a sugar source. If it weren't for maple sugar, the colonists would have relied on cane sugar imported from the Caribbean.



How do the experts eat it?

Each of the daughters at Turtle Lane Maple Farm prefer syrup a different way:



Siobhan Murphy, 13, poured on pancakes, the traditional way

Meaghan Murphy, 12, doesn't like syrup only maple sap

Kara Murphy, 10, hot off the pan, maple candy or maple milk shakes

Kaleigh Boulanger, 4, poured on snow or for dipping plain pancakes